A team of scientists have retrieved microbe-filled water samples from deep within Blood Falls, an area in northern Antarctica with a rust-colored hue due to its iron-rich contents.

Antarctica is, for the most part, an expanse of icy whiteness except in one part where it appears a deep rusty color.

Located at the top of the continent, Blood Falls gets its namesake hue from iron-rich water that has been locked in under the ice for 2 million years.

And for the first time, scientists were able to send a probe into the ice to take samples of the briny liquid from a channel that allows it to flow from the larger reservoir miles away to the falls.  

In 2004,